On The Destruction of People

The recreation of the city of Baghdad for Assassins Creed Mirage involved taking some “creative license” to rebuild the famed Arabic city. In an interview with Axios, Mirage's art director Jean-Luc Sala notes that “the destruction of Baghdad hundreds of years ago left Ubisoft's designers with a lack of visual references from the time.” Affordances had to be made to approximate an idea of what this once historic place might have looked like.

A city founded in the year 762 and subsequently flourishing for centuries, what once was the most significant cultural center of Arab and Islamic civilization and one of the greatest cities of the world can now only be gleaned through various exhibits at museums across the world.

Per Brittanica: "In 1258 Hülegü, the grandson of Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, overran Mesopotamia, sacked Baghdad, killed the caliph, and massacred hundreds of thousands of residents. He destroyed many of the surrounding dikes and headworks, making restoration of the irrigation system nearly impossible and thereby destroying Baghdad’s potential for future prosperity."

Mirage’s “History of Baghdad" feature is a trove of codex entries collected throughout the game world, brimming with interesting factoids and historical information. Seleucid-on-the-Tigris’ three small paragraph entry details a city just 35km north of Baghdad, famous as a commercial epicenter “known throughout the world for its Stoic philosophers and Olympic athletes”. Founded around 305 BC, it was destroyed by the Roman Empire in 165 AD. Our experience of this place in game is but a few crumbling pillars of a history long forgotten.

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in Palestinian-Israeli relations, oppositions and conflict. Too many westerners have to have their opinion blaring loudly on social media sites, making grand declarations about something they know barely anything about.

Instead let’s look at some known, researched and verified facts and proper journalistic reporting.

Gaza Strip has long been known as the largest open air prison.

Israel is backed by the global powers of the West, giving it a massive power imbalance over Palestine. 

Israel uses its massive military advantage to control the daily lives of Palestinians. 

When conflict escalates in the region, Palestinians suffer dramatically more, then are left worse off afterwards.

Over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed so far since Israel started bombing. Over 700 of those are children. It’s been one week.

Wandering the streets of this fictional recreation of Baghdad, the artifice is fairly clear - this is a video game designed for fun and escapism, of course - however it’s clear folks at Ubisoft Bordeaux have focused very heavily on making the experience as authentically Middle Eastern as possible. 

I haven’t fast travelled all that much, choosing to instead luxuriate in the recreation of a culture I have very little familiarity with. Growing up a millennial forces 9/11 and the following anti-Muslim racism to be a key touchpoint for ignorant Westerners. Learning about the lives of others in a different time and place, walking among even a facsimile of what once might have been, is one of the great triumphs of this huge franchise.

Of course, Assassins Creed has always been occupied with history. While it’s in service of a fantastical, conspiratorial narrative thread, it’s always been about specific moments in time (albeit with the aforementioned “creative license”). Each character, each story shows how actions alter the trajectory of that history; moments that determine the future of millions.

This moment in time feels like another touchpoint in history. One marred by hate, followed by horrific destruction of life, once again suffered by those who do not deserve it.

Why is it The Onion cuts right to the heart of the issue, where news networks and political figures completely fail?

The Prime Minister of Israel has echoed statements made by Osama Bin Laden of the Americans, blaming the civilian population for Hamas’ actions, condemning over 2 million people - half of which are children - as complicit to terrorism, and therefore acceptable as collateral damage in their war on Hamas.

Their bombs fall across heavily urban areas, dropping residential buildings that hundreds once called home. Israeli strikes cause mass civilian casualties on evacuation convoys. 

Terror reigns for regular people, trying to simply live. Palestinians beg to be seen as regular human beings, after losing multiple family members to Israeli bombing strikes.

Israel, being in control of almost all entrances to Gaza, have halted all fuel, food, electricity, medical supplies and water into the region altogether. This threatens the lives of millions within the Gaza Strip.

I was meant to write about last weekend's PAX Australia today. I took a press badge promising coverage, but right now that’s the farthest thing from my mind. I’m also meant to be writing a proper review of Assassins Creed Mirage, among other games I’m meant to covering.

Instead all I see when I close my eyes is a rotating clip of a man pulling the body of a baby from the back of an ambulance, before walking across the road in the background of a live news feed. There’s no point even taking the tiny limp frame into the hospital.

A very clearly broken young reporter recounts Israeli bombs raining down on the explicit location the IDF told Palestinian civilians to evacuate to. 

The unfathomable anguish in every word hangs painfully in the air; the understanding that no power in the world is interested in halting genocide leaves a profound sense of hopelessness words cannot describe.